


Othermas on a Logical Planet

by President Romana (asoldandtrueasthesky)



Category: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 18:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9001666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asoldandtrueasthesky/pseuds/President%20Romana
Summary: Written for the dwsecretsanta 2016.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the-ripper-rides](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=the-ripper-rides).



Narvin hadn’t thought much about what a job at the CIA actually entailed when he’d accepted the job offer. The complete failure of Project Alpha had rather put him off experimental temporal technology and an organisation that prided itself on secrecy was above answering the questions of potential recruits. There had been a brochure, of course, but it had been mainly filled with glossy photographs of agents in immaculate dress uniforms.

He’d assumed a bit of subterfuge, reconnaissance, a lot of cleaning up when aliens messed with powers beyond their understanding and, yes, from time to time, chasing fugitives. He’d just never imagined that would entail digging through a rubbish bin.

“I don’t get paid enough for this.” Vansell muttered, from where he was perched precariously over a pile of garbage.

Narvin raised an eyebrow. “We don’t get paid.”

“Exactly.”

“What would you need a load of pandaks for in the first place?”

“I just want some kind of compensation for this.” Vansell wrinkled his nose. “It’s Otherstide, I should be at my House being bored to regeneration by uninteresting cousins, not digging through alien _refuse_.” 

“What a tragedy we should miss that.” Narvin said, entirely unconvincingly. “What makes you think it’s a waste of time?”

“You have a piece of extremely anachronistic temporal technology that you can trade for anything on the black market. You don’t throw it away.”

“You’re on the run from a time travelling organisation with a reputation for harsh punishments and you have stolen property. You dispose of the evidence.” He countered.

“You assume we’re intimidating enough to trump greed.”

“Aren’t we?”

Vansell gave up on his search, jumping back to the ground and glancing at Narvin’s now untidy and stained robes. “You’re certainly not.”

“I could use some help.”

“You’re the one who thinks we’ll find something of use. Besides, all of us had to do the shobogan jobs at one point or another.”

“I’m not new.”

“You’re new till you’ve been here a decade.”

“It’s not like I’m some upstart from the Academy.”

“You’ve never regenerated.”

Narvin snorted. “Dying isn’t some rite of passage.”

“Isn’t rebirth?”

“I’m quite happy with my current form, thank you.”

“Suit yourself. “ Vansell fidgeted and looked up. “Are you giving up yet?”

Narvin leant over slightly too far and overbalanced, toppling into the bin with a soft thud, his fall thankfully cushioned. “No.” he said, his voice muffled.  

“Stubbornness doesn’t suit you, Narvin.”

“Found something!” Narvin said, clambering out of the bin with more than a hint of smugness, as if it had been his plan all along.

“That,” Vansell said with a raised eyebrow, “is not a piece of extremely anachronistic temporal technology.”

“No, it’s a flyer for a restaurant.” He agreed.

“Finding a place to eat was worth that?”

“It’s the same restaurant Arkadian used when he tried to bribe me last time, remember?”

“Arkadian, of course. And I know where he’ll be.” He said, as if it had been his idea in the first place.

“In said restaurant, meeting a potential buyer?”

“And leaving them with the bill.”

 

-

 

Arkadian looked up as they approached his table, giving them an unconcerned smile. “Ah, the good men of the CIA, back again, I see. What am I meant to have done this time?”

“Stolen a vortex stabiliser from one of our TARDISes.”

“Really? That’s the first I’ve even heard of vortex stabilisers. Do you just come to me every time you want to a pin a crime on an unsuspecting civilian?”

“Arkadian. I can see it under the table.”

He grinned at Vansell, tossed the part in question to Narvin and put his hands up, the movement more of an enigmatic gesture than a surrender. “Oh well, worth a try. What’ll you be wanting then?”

“Are you trying to bribe us? Again?” Narvin asked, incredulous.

“Me? Oh, I’d never stoop to such low measures. I’ll give you something for free. A show of good faith, if you will. I’m sure you’d rather be doing something more worthwhile, it can’t be satisfying, can it, two agents of your calibre chasing petty criminals and charges of larceny?”

“We’d be agents of a much lower calibre if we were fools enough to trust you.”  

“I’ve heard some chatter about an arms deal-“

“Is that a confession to being in the business of smuggling dangerous weapons?”

“Of course not, I can’t help but hear things, you can’t condemn me for going to perhaps less than esteemed bars, can you? As I was saying, there’s been rather a lot of chatter about an arms deal gone very awry. Solagelo quadrant. The sellers killed, goods unpaid for.”

“A tragedy, I’m sure.” drawled Vansell.

“Oh, just a few fellows trying to make ends meet in a cruel world, surely you can understand?”

“Right, and didn’t care if their goods took out half the solar system. You expect us to investigate the murders of your friends and give you a free pass?” 

“Of course not. But the whole matter is your responsibility, see, I have it on good authority that the culprit’s one of your own.”

Narvin shifted, interest ignited despite himself. “Whose authority?”

“Ah, that you’d have to pay for. Let me go with a slap on the wrist and you’ll have all the details you want.”

Vansell grabbed him by the shoulders, keeping hold of his staser in case Arkadian tried to flee. “I went through alien rubbish tracking you down, you’re going back to Gallifrey.”

“ _I_?” Narvin asked.

“To a secret CIA prison where I’ll never be heard from again?”

“Melodrama’s never suited you, Arkadian.”

 

-

 

“Narvin.” Torvald looked up from behind a malfunctioning Matrix terminal, face blank but his mind mentally broadcasting bitterness. “Finally seen fit to visit me?”

He coughed and looked away. “It’s really not my fault you were transferred to archives.”

“You mean, you couldn’t help but upstage me?”

“Half of all trainees don’t even make it into the CIA proper-“

“So I should consider myself lucky? You’re out there doing things. I’m stuck with a bunch of fossils who really make a case for Rassilon giving us too many regenerations.”

“If it makes you feel better I was just digging through alien refuse.”

Torvald smiled. “It does. What do you need? Assuming you didn’t stop by for a catch up, of course.”

“I need reports of arms deals or unexplained corpses in the Solagelo quadrant.”

“What, since time immemorial?”

“Within the last few spans or so.”

“How helpfully vague.” He said, but sounded slightly impressed despite himself- being vague about passages of time in a language such as Gallifreyan was harder than talking about temporal metaphysics. “Fine, but it’ll take me awhile.”

Narvin nodded and spared a glance at his ruined uniform. “I need to change anyway.”

“Yeah.” Torvald wrinkled his nose. “You do.”

 

-

 

By the time Narvin had changed into one of his many spare uniforms, Vansell was waiting for him. “Haven’t you run out of leads to chase?”

“Torvald’s running some up for us now.”

“Us?”

“Last I checked, we were partners.”

“Narvin, do you have something against Otherstide?”

“Do you have something against working?”

“No. I’m simply convinced we have cases more worthy of my time.”

“Like what?”

Vansell faltered. “The murder-suicide of the forebear of House Stilllake?”

“That’s not even close to our jurisdiction.”

“I’m sure we could wrestle it from the ill-equipped hands of the Chancellery Guard if we had need to.”

“I’d rather go after something actually in our purview.”

“Look, I’ve chased after tips from Arkadian before. It’ll only end in you chasing your own tail with nothing to show for it. Unless you have independent corroboration, I’m not helping.”

“Would the mind probe count?”

“Yes, but all the technicians went to visit their Houses. Under duress, I imagine.”

“Arkadian doesn’t know that.”

 

-

 

Interrogation was an art. Not one he’d had much practice at, as Vansell was ever keen to remind him, but he was a Patrexes, art was in his blood.

He walked over to Arkadian in the blindingly lit room, his pace slow and bored, as if he was doing Arkadian a great favour by even giving him a moment of his time. “Feeling talkative yet?”

“Not until there’s an attractive deal on the table. Like a key to this cell, for instance.”

“We don’t need your cooperation, Arkadian.” He said, glancing over a blank file in his hand. “We have the mindprobe and the option to take the day off, if we were so inclined.”

“Then why am I not being hauled there kicking and screaming right now?”

“Because then I’d have to do paperwork. Make things easier for yourself and maybe if the lead pans out, we’ll forget about the attempted theft.”

“Nothing more lucrative to offer, agent?”

Narvin turned to leave, his pace quick and sharp.

“Let’s settle this like gentlemen, Narvin.”

He paused. “I’m listening.”

“Word on the street is the Monans are interested in buying aforementioned stolen goods from this certain Time Lord and are making certain _overtures_ to this effect.”

“And, according to this street, who would this Time Lord be?”

“I believe he goes by the name of The Valeyard.”

 

~~-~~

Vansell fiddled with the console, plugging in the co-ordinates carefully. “You know, I collared the Valeyard once.”

Narvin looked up. “What for?”

“Er. He was arrested for genocide.”

“ _Arrested_?”

“We, uh, didn’t have enough evidence, Flavia wouldn’t let us make something up and the presiding Inquisitor was getting very strict about courtroom theatrics after last time he was-“

“You let him go?” he asked, unimpressed.

“Of course not. We convicted him of temporal-spacial speeding.”

“Speeding _._ ”

“And of minor changes to protected timelines.”

Narvin pushed the dimensional stabiliser and fumbled with the other controls, still not used to piloting a type 66 TARDIS. “I’m sure he was shaking in his boots when you were done with him.”

“Well, I have another chance now, don’t I?” Vansell opened the TARDIS doors with a click of his fingers. “After you.”

Narvin walked out, glancing back at the vessel. “I see stealth mode didn’t work.”

“You did it wrong.”

“I did exactly what it said in the manual!”

“Exactly. Manuals can be wrong, experience usually isn’t.”

“And I know nothing because I’m still a newbie who hasn’t regenerated?”

“Precisely.” Vansell went back in and two microspans later, the TARDIS shuddered out from view.

Narvin sighed, waiting impatiently for his partner to return and then froze. He knew what a staser felt like, when it was pushed against one’s back.

“A Gallifreyan spy, standing around like a lost lamb?” hissed a voice in his ear. “How fortunate for me.”

Narvin lunged forward, grabbing at where he knew the door handle should be but never quite reached it, a wave of energy travelling up his spine and leaving him crumpled on the floor.


End file.
